division of cavalry. Fires had been seen at Lorrach. The _sous-prefet_
at Schelestadt had sent a telegram announcing that the Prussians were
preparing to pass the Rhine at Markolsheim. The general did not like
his unsupported position on the extreme right, where he was cut off
from communication with the other corps, and his movement in the
direction of the frontier had been accelerated by the intelligence he
had received the day before of the disastrous surprise at Wissembourg.
Even if he should not be called on to face the enemy on his own front,
he felt that he was likely at any moment to be ordered to march to the
relief of the 1st corps. There must be fighting going on, away down
the river near Froeschwiller, on that dark and threatening Saturday,
that ominous 6th of August; there was premonition of it in the sultry
air, and the stray puffs of wind passed shudderingly over the camp as
if fraught with tidings of impending evil. And for two days the
division had believed that it was marching forth to battle; the men
had expected to find the Prussians in their front, at the termination
of their forced march from Belfort to Mulhausen.

The day was drawing to an end, and from a remote corner of the camp
the rattling drums and the shrill bugles sounded retreat, the sound
dying away faintly in the distance on the still air of evening. Jean
Macquart, who had been securing the tent and driving the pegs home,
rose to his feet. When it began to be rumored that there was to be war
he had left Rognes, the scene of the bloody drama in which he had lost
his wife, Francoise and the acres that she brought him; he had
re-enlisted at the age of thirty-nine, and been assigned to the 106th
of the line, of which they were at that time filling up the _cadres_,
with his old rank of corporal, and there were moments when he could
not help wondering how it ever came about that he, who after Solferino
had been so glad to quit the service and cease endangering his own and